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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Week 45: Hexagon Quilt Front

Last week I got started on a baby quilt for a friend of mine. I had some issues with geometry, but I flexed my math muscles and ended up with a bunch of hexagons and triangles that were ready to be fit together into a quilt.

To start piecing, I added two triangles to each hexagon, making parallelogram blocks (more math!), like above. When piecing a quilt together, you always want to work with straight seams like the ones I have above. The triangles fit onto the hexagons with a straight seam, and the two blocks above will fit together with a straight seam...

And when I line them up like below, and sew all of those straight seams...

I end up with rows that can be sewn together with straight seams. (This concept has come to me gradually. Being a person that usually makes her own patterns rather than buying someone else's, I've had to do a lot of problem solving. Believe me when I tell you that sewing around a corner to fit a block in is NOT FUN.)

I made six rows like the one above, each consisting of six hexagon blocks.

I didn't even notice that this pattern ends up making lots of Star's Of David, until my mom pointed it out.

Perhaps I should have used more math planning... because two sides ended up looking like this... NOT lovely.

But not to worry... I used my rotary cutter to get rid of all the extras, with a few nice quick swipes. (Have no fear. Most of the extras will get used in the quilt back, so they aren't all wasted.)

Four straight sides. So much better.

Lastly, I added some strips of chevron, and some gray rectangles to the borders to make it look more clean and finished.